Product Description

The Game of THINGS...… is the hilarious party game that presents players with provocative topics like "THINGS… people do when no one is looking", "THINGS… you wouldn’t do for a million dollars" or "THINGS… your parents forgot to tell you"… and allows each player to say whatever comes to mind. Pick a topic, get everyone to write a response, read them out loud and then guess who said what. There are no right answers. There are no wrong answers, just a lot of fun. You won’t believe the THINGS… you’ll hear.

Product Reviews

Things… is my favorite party game. Period. Every time we play this
Canadian gem, it spawns uncontrollable laughter.

The Contents

Before you even open the wooden box that Things… comes in, you’ll
notice the dovetail joint construction of the box. Stop reading right
now and go check the construction of the drawers in your kitchen. If
they’re not dovetailed, you need to ask yourself why a party game box
is made with more care than your kitchen drawers.

When you slide the lid off the wooden box, the first thing you’ll see
is a double-sided 5-1/2” x 7-1/2” sheet of instructions. As with any
good social game, the rules are few and easy to comprehend. You can be
playing Things… within 90 seconds of opening the box for the first time.

The bulk of what you’re paying for are the 300 topic cards. Topic
cards all begin with “Things…” and then conclude the sentence with a
single interesting scenario such as “that confirm you are screwed.”
Other examples are

The box also contains 10 short pencils, the kind you’d find at a
miniature golf course (Perhaps you’d find them at a real golf course,
too; I don’t play.), a response pad of paper, and a scoring pad. The
response pad has 4 perforations so you can tear off your short answer
without wasting much paper. The publishers could have saved money by
eliminating the paper and pencils, but those items add value.
Everything I need is stored in the box. I don’t have to go rummaging
through drawers to find working pens and enough paper. I really like
the perforated paper because it dictates the length of my responses,
and it’s environmentally friendlier than full-paper options.

Game Play

So what do you do with all these things? Start by handing out pencils
and response pads to everyone. All the players tear off a strip of
paper at the perforation. One player is given the score pad and the
task of recording scores throughout the game. A reader is chosen. The
reader reads (That’s what readers do!) one Topic card. All the
players, including the reader, write a response on their long, narrow
strip of paper. When the players finish writing, they fold their paper
twice and drop it in the game box.

The reader reads out the responses once and then does it a second
time. The first time is to acquaint everyone with the responses. The
second time allows players to commit key words to memory.

The player to the left of the reader names one of the responses and
then tries to guess who wrote it. If the guess is correct, the player
who wrote the response is eliminated and the guesser continues trying
to recall responses and match them to their authors. When the guesser
is wrong, the role of guesser moves left to the first available player
who has not yet been eliminated. This continues around the table until
every player but one has been eliminated.

1 point is awarded for every correct guess. 6 points are awarded to
the winner of the round. The role of reader passes to the left, and
another round is played. When everyone has been reader once, the game
is over. The high score wins.

The Dynamics of the Game

Every game of Things… I’ve played has taken on a life of its own. It’s
one part memory game, one part deception game, and one big part
creative game. You’re playing to an audience of your peers. Because
the topic cards will be different every time you play, and the cast of
players will probably shift a little, each game takes on a different feel.

I’ve read criticisms of Things… that center around the memory
component. I don’t think it’s important for two reasons. First, you
don’t have to remember a response verbatim. You just need a key word
or phrase. If you say, “the bagel answer,” everyone at the table will
know what you’re referring to. You don’t need to say, “My Uncle
Ralph’s bagel and schmear.” Second, the memory element is a means to
an end. The game isn’t about remembering who wrote what. It’s about
writing funny answers and escalating the humor quotient which each new
answer. The designers needed some mechanic to hang it on, and they
hung it on memory.

One aspect of Things… that I particularly like is the deception. To
minimize the chances that my response will be identified as mine, I
must try to write as if I were one of the other players. Of course,
all of the other players are doing the same thing. The results can be
hilariously inept.

Responses often get repeated in subsequent rounds. Something that was
funny in the first round is often resurrected and ratcheted up in
later rounds. But unlike Hollywood producers who don’t know when to
let sleeping Jasons or Freddies lie, the group is usually aware enough
to drop the response when the humor returns begin to diminish.

A Word of Caution

Things… can take a bawdy turn. The topic cards themselves are
innocuously neutral. The box contains nothing remotely questionable,
and if your group objects to bawdy or naughty, the game can easily be
played in a G-rated way. It will still be fun. That said, the cards
pretty clearly make it easy for you to give in to your baser,
raunchier side. If you don’t even want to be tempted to move in that
direction, pick another game. I don’t mind feeding my naughty side now
and then. Neither, apparently, do the many people to whom I’ve
introduced this great game. It’s been a hit every time I’ve brought it
out.

Final Thoughts

At its heart Things… is simply a good excuse to direct your thoughts
in some odd way as you let the creative juices flow. It really is
Humour in a Box.

Once a month we have a large dinner party at our home. We bought
Things a year ago... I liked the wooden box it came in and it was a
good crowd game. We love it! Things you wish your parents told
you...... Things you should not do in church.... Things that should
not be on a billboard. We typically have an answer that players
repeat - goats, Andy Gibb, Jana Jamison... I am really glad the game
is back in print.

I run a board game afternoon each Sunday at my church,
with quite a few people staying and playing games. The
"designer" games see a lot of play, and people are usually
quite willing to try new things. But party games still have
a good following, as there's just something about them that
people enjoy. Things... Humour in a Box (Quinn & Sherry
Inc., 2002 -- designer not credited) is another in a series
of party games that we've recently tried. Things... adds a
bit of a memory element and deduction to your typical
everyone-input-an-answer party game.

While not attaining the status of great party games such
as Time's
Up and Why
Did the Chicken?, Things... did go over quite well in my
groups -- enough to where it was requested time and time
again. It didn't play very well with a teenager crew, but
with adults -- everyone had a blast! There will be some that
don't like the memory aspect (can be ignored using a
variant), and others may attempt to be "gamey" when playing;
but for the most part, Things... is a party game worthy of
owning. (As long as you already have the big three -- Apples to
Apples, Time's Up, and Why did the Chicken?)

Each player is given some paper, a pencil, and a stack of
Topic cards (300 are included in the game) that are placed
in the middle of the table. One person is the "reader" for
the first round and takes the top card and reads it aloud.
Examples of topics are...

Things... cannibals think about while dining.

Things... that are harder than they look.

Things... you shouldn't say to your in-laws.

Things... you would do if you were a giant.

All players, including the reader, write an answer to the
card, and pass them to the reader. After receiving all the
responses, the reader reads them aloud twice. Starting with
the player to the left of the reader, each player makes one
guess as to who wrote what response. If they guess
correctly, they receive one point, and the player whose
answer they guessed is out of the round. The correct answer
also gives them another guess. If the player guesses
incorrectly, their turn is over; and the player to their
left (if not eliminated) gets a chance to guess. This
continues until all players have been eliminated but one (or
more than one, if no one can remember any of the responses),
at which point six points are split amongst the remaining
players.

The responses are never re-read, until half of the
players have been eliminated, at which point the remaining
responses are read one final time. After the round ends, a
new reader picks a topic card, and the game continues.
After a set number of rounds, the game ends; and the player
with the most points is the winner!

Some comments on the game...

Components: Things... comes in wooden box with a
sliding, removable lid. The box seems fairly durable (I
cracked mine, but I did drop it from a backpack while moving
quickly) and is light. The box is also split into three
sections -- one for the small pencils included with the game
(all party games should do this), one for the 300 topic
cards (which are okay quality -- as party cards go), and one
for the response papers and score sheets. I have to stop
and talk about the response sheets here, as I thought they
were a clever idea. The response pad, which is thick (I
guesstimate about 200 sheets or so), is perforated so that
players can tear each paper into five equal strips. This
cuts down on the waste from other party games (in some, we
continually scribble out old answers so that we can re-use
the same paper) and is a pretty neat idea. The only bad
thing I'll say about Things... Humour in a Box is that the
game doesn't look very fun, as the box, cards, and
everything else just isn't flashy or very interesting. That
doesn't reflect in gameplay but may affect people's
purchasing decisions.

Rules: The rules come on a single-sheet of paper,
double-sided. They are short, as with most party games and
formatted okay for the most part. I DON'T think it's
NECESSARY to CAPITALIZE as many WORDS as they did in the
rules, but it's not a big deal. Players learn the game
quite quickly -- pretty much par for a game such as this.

Easy Play: The game has some memory elements, and every
game I've played in has people sitting there, trying to
remember the different responses given. It's usually not
that big of a deal; you can always guess the same incorrect
response as the person before you with a different person,
but some folks may not like this memory aspect. The rules
mention an easy play variant, in which players can write
down a word or two of each response to help them remember
them better. Personally, I like playing WITH the memory
aspect, but to each their own.

"Gamey": I've played games similar to this with my
classes before, and one problem can crop up. If one
particular player is winning, each other player can, in
turn, guess that player's name in connection with a
different response. That player will, according to the law
of averages, eventually be eliminated from the game, and
probably, according to the law of grudges, be annoyed with
everyone else. This has only cropped up once in my
playings, but the possibility is there.

Age, Players, Time: Since there is only one round for
each person (we often change this), the game ends pretty
quickly. The game can handle up to fifteen players
(according to the box), although I haven't played with more
than ten. It does NOT make a good game for four players,
and I wouldn't play with less than six. One thing that I
found was that the teenagers just didn't really "get" the
game. They wrote answers that were too obvious from their
personalities, and often had a hard time coming up with
responses. Adults, on the other hand, did very well with
the game and had a great time, even though occasionally the
answers to the topics strayed into some very odd answers.

Fun Factor: The most fun part of this game is hearing
one player ask another incredulously, "You wrote that!!!??"
When a demure player writes an answer that is totally out
of character, yet funny or poignant, it really makes the
game fun to play. Some of the topic cards, such as Things...
you shouldn't advertise in the classified ads, lend
themselves automatically to humorous responses, but it's
interesting to see what people write to any topic. In fact,
the game could even be played with a psychological bent --
to see what people's personalities are like from their
responses, but I could care less; I'm just here to have fun.

If trying to guess what other players' silly responses to
a topic are sounds like fun to you, then Things... is a
great game that you should get. I enjoy the game; and while
I won't pull it out as much as my top party games, it will
see a lot of play. For one, it can handle very large groups
of people and has a bit of a "breaking ice" type feel, where
you can learn about each other (in a funny way). For
another, the shock on people's faces when they realize the
author of specific responses is just priceless sometimes. If
party games go over well in your groups, this is one you
shouldn't miss!